Good points, everybody. I don't think we're fundamentally disagreeing. I definitely agree that anyone who wants to write to a high level has to go through an apprenticeship of learning the things it isn't possible to learn just through reading alone. I've bored you all before with the story of my first novel: how I thought it was perfect but my editor (very tactfully) first showed me it needed cutting by a third and after I'd done that, went through it line by line, making around 15 suggestions per page. After getting over my ego being deflated, I took on board just about every one of her suggestions, learning more in that process than the previous 20 odd years of writing on my own.

Looking back, I think it was with my second novel that I began to develop as more of a sort-it-out-mentally-and-with-notes-beforehand-then-try-to-hit-it-first-time writer. What I then found difficult was the fact that the prevailing wisdom clearly favoured the many-drafts approach. Well, not just favoured, often rather dogmatically insisted that was the only way. In recent years, it seems more seat of pants flyers have come out of the library closet, but I feel there's still quite a bit of prejudice against their approach from the literary establishment.

Cherys, thanks for that. I do care passionately about craft and perhaps the strongest principle of my editing/mentoring work is to help a writer find the approach that best suits them, whether that's lots of rewriting or little of it. I still disagree with you over Rule 3; or at least, I believe Heinlein means you don't send anything out that isn't finished, to a professional level. So, yes, you're right that many writers don't do this; or at least they delude themselves that they do. I've argued about this before on WW, but this is the reason I think it's a mistake to aim your short fiction at the easy markets. Because, scoring a 'hit' with one of those is likely to convince you that your work is therefore at a professional level. But if you're serious about improving, it's far, far better, say to spend five years working at your craft then sell a story to a top magazine like Asimov's, than get forty stories published in the same period with mags like, well, I won't name them but let's just say we hear about some of them quite a bit on WW.

It's certainly my experience of teaching for the OU that the BIG news of the whole course, for most of the students, is that rewriting (or re-drafting, or revising, or whatever you want to call it) is part of the process. They're used to perhaps a spot of planning, but after that writing something, checking the spelling, checking for the technical errors they've just been taught about, and counting it done. After all, that's what we all did at school and university.

Emma, I get what you're saying. I guess the question is, what does a student do after they get the point? (Assuming they do!) I think the writing path could crudely be said to go a bit like this:

1. No craft.
2. Learn craft.
3. a) apply craft to 'good' writing
b) apply craft to commercial writing
4. Learn more craft

Yes, I know, I really do, that you can't black-and-white 'art' and 'commercial' writing; that they both require craft and overlap and so on. But there is that basic split, I believe, and probably the writers who succeed are the ones who make a decision after 2), instead of muddling between a) and b) like most end up doing (which then makes 4 more difficult too).

Yes, another thing that's very annoying, is if you give a crit and instead of editing the section to correct the errors, the writer simply rewrites the whole scene from scratch, because invariably they've still got the same technical mistakes in it. Sure, if the scene is unnecessary then just dump it, but otherwise edit it, don't rewrite it.

Naomi, I know what you mean! We had a guy on our Odyssey course who put in the same kind of story with the same kinds of errors for all six of his assignments. We all knew he was there more for validation than to learn but we honourably critted each of his stories in the hope he'd take something on board (he still hasn't!).

Terry


<Added>

Just read Gaius's post and I think he makes a good point. Perhaps the answer is simple courtesy: if someone's crit shows you the need to re-draft rather than re-write, it would be good to let the critter know that and thank them accordingly.

But fundamentally, if someone's not wired for learning from a critting set-up, then there's not a lot you can do about that.

I think my point is that doing a rewrite than a correction doesn't indicate anything one way or the other. The real test of whether a learning point has got through is whether the individual can reapply the same thinking in a different situation.

So I think the example of rewriting rather than correcting as a measure of a learning point being absorbed is bogus. Like the moronic learning-by-rote repetition, pupils will often learn how to complete an exercise rather than learning what the exercise is about.

A case in point would be the computerised driving theory test where the illustrations are so poor and the choices so badly worded that it is easier to memorise the correct answers than to understand _why_ those answers are correct. (Which, when you think about it, is the exact opposite of desirable.)

By contrast, Terry's example of a writer consistently incorporating the same mistakes, even after feedback, is a more valid of not learning.
G

<Added>

is a more valid of not learning >> is a more valid measure of not learning

<Added>

that doing a rewrite than a correction >> that doing a rewrite rather than a correction

The real test of whether a learning point has got through is whether the individual can reapply the same thinking in a different situation.

Yes, very true. I've only ever given up working with a writer once, and it was because they simply didn't know how to take what I'd explained and explored on one section, and even try to truffle out the other places where it was an issue, and do something about them. Just didn't seem to have a brain wired to do that, though they were perfectly capable in other areas of life as far as I know.

I tried, I really did - I hate giving up on someone and have never before or since felt the least desire to - but it was like explaining and demonstrating very carefully what you do with hands and feet to drive a car round a corner, and sending them round a few to get the feel... and then finding the writer wanting me to go through the map marking every single corner with detailed instructions for every single one, specific to the speed, angle, junction shape and so on.

I don't know whether it was their lack of confidence, or really faulty wiring for learning anything. But would have ended up with me, effectively, being somewhere between a copy-editor and a ghost writer, and that's not what I do.

Emma